The Last Houseparty Read Online Free PDF

Boys’ Room” lay three doors down the western wing, so on coming out of it Vincent turned right. But when he reached the corner, instead of going on to the main stair or taking the circular staircase down the inner corner turret, he turned up the spur that led to the tower room. Half-way along it he paused and looked at the sepia engraving of Snailwood as it had been before the fire, its details almost invisible in the dimness, but showing when brought into the light a plain brick box of a house, a sailing barge on the Thames below, haymakers in the meadow pasture, and ladies and gentlemen, ludicrously out of scale, walking among the scarce-grown topiary of the terraces.
    Without knocking Vincent opened the door at the end of the passage.
    â€œOh, I’m f-frightfully sorry,” he said.
    The tower rooms were kite-shaped, circular on the outside but square on the inner two walls. Though the space was not specially large, the thickness of the outer masonry, manifest in the deep window recesses, gave an impression of ponderous scale. It may have been this that made the child seem so small and vulnerable.
    She had looked up at the movement of the door, but her face had fallen on seeing a stranger. She was about seven, primly dressed in a blue pleated skirt and a white blouse. Her dark hair curled around a pallid, mildly sulky face. She had been dressing or undressing a large rag doll.
    â€œI just wanted a qu-quick look,” said Vincent. “I used to use this room rather a lot.”
    â€œWas it your nursery?” said the child.
    â€œSort of. This isn’t really my home, but Harry and I spent most of our school holidays here. Have you got everything you want?”
    â€œNo. It’s all boys’ things.”
    â€œâ€™Fraid so.”
    â€œThere isn’t anywhere for Mary to sleep.”
    Vincent glanced at the bed—nearly full-size but still cot-like with its beechwood rail all round—that jutted from the wall on his right.
    â€œOh, I see, Mary’s your doll,” he said.
    â€œCourse she is. It’s time for her rest and there isn’t anywhere for her to sleep.”
    â€œI could make her a c-cradle, if you like, supposing my Meccano’s still there.”
    â€œYes, it is.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWould you like me to make Mary a cradle?”
    â€œIf you want to,” said the child, not yielding anything.
    Vincent closed the door and crossed to the central window, where he lifted the cushioned lid of the window-seat and took out from the space below a round-topped wooden chest, painted with skull and cross-bones. This he placed in the centre of the room, then sat on the floor beside it a few feet from the girl. When he opened the lid she did not even glance to see what was in the chest. Whoever had last been playing with the set—or sets, for there was evidently more Meccano than in the largest box sold in shops—had put everything away with extreme neatness. Though well used, so that round many of the holes the gold or red paint was worn through, all the strips and girders had been graded to size and fastened with elastic bands, the wheels matched and packed on to axles, bolts and clips sorted into match-boxes, the clockwork motors wrapped in grease-proof paper.
    â€œI’ve never built a cradle before,” said Vincent. “I shall have to think it out. Do you want one that rocks?”
    â€œIf you like.”
    â€œI suppose I could make it so that it rocks itself when you start the motor.”
    â€œYes, please.”
    â€œLend me Mary a mo to measure for size. Thanks … Not bad, but it’s going to be a bit knobbly for her unless you can find something to make a mattress.”
    The child did not react or move. For a while Vincent did nothing either, apart from staring into the box while his fingers teased unthinkingly at his moustache, but there was a sense of dormant energies coming to life